Shin Splints

Larissa Roux, MD FRCP Dip Sport Med, MPH, PhD, discusses shin splint symptoms and treatments.

ACL injuries are very common in skiing, an ACL injury is a partial or full tear of a ligament that sits inside your knee, and this can happen from a bending and twisting motion, okay.

Usually you will feel a big stretch on your knee or if it has completely torn you hear a pop or a snap.

That will sort of come on with swelling as well.

It’s going to be painful to weight bear and your knee feels quite unstable when you try to put your weight on it.

With ACL injuries, you want to make sure that you protect a joint in the first zero to twenty-four hours.

Again, use your RICE principle, ice and compress, elevate, and then get to a qualified physiotherapist as soon as you can so that we can determine the severity of the injury and either immobilize your leg if we need to, or get you back to some motion rehab right away.

Usually, ACL injuries, there’s some predisposing factors, muscle imbalances, lack of balance and flexibility and as part of our assessment, we can sort of look at those things and make sure that we address those as part of your rehab.

Depending on how bad the ACL injury is, you may need to get surgery, if it’s completely ruptured.

Some people decide to go conservative and they use bracing to stabilize the joint while the rehab is happening.

We have to make sure that we determine the condition of your knee, because any time you tear a ligament in any joint, the joint mechanics change and that could lead to detrimental affects down the road if you don’t get it addressed.

That is why you need to see a qualified physiotherapist to address those issues and make sure that you are on the right track with your rehab.